We will be running a workshop as part of the DRS conference in Limerick on the 25th June 2018. This design workshop will be highly participatory with a short introduction to distributed systems followed by several group activities exploring trust in digital systems. We will investigate the changing trust relationships in existing centralised to more distributed systems using a wide selection of tangible materials. Using material affordances to represent different relationships and aspects of trust, participants will map relations between individual actors and organisations. Discussing and highlighting existing trust relationships and potential shifts emerging in distributed systems will raise questions around existing trust relationships in digital systems and how they emerge or manifest. Who do we trust and how do we build trust? What are the relationships between trust and aspects of transparency, control or convenience? What influences trust in digital relationships, and ultimately, what can the design community learn from this untangling of trust relationships in future distributed systems for novel forms of interactions? Using accessible, tangible tools in this workshop to investigate trust relationships will also offer insights into material affordances, their potentially representative nature of trust and their prospects of facilitating debate around various forms of relationships in distributed systems.
The workshop will take place on Monday 25th June 2018 from 14:00 – 17:30 at the University of Limerick in Ireland. Find more details about the workshop here or have a look at the overall conference programme on the Design Research Society website.